Queens Park

The Hill - Camp Hill

View from the summit, Camp Hill in Queen's Park (photo included with kind permission from the big boy cousin)

Location: Queen's Park, Glasgow
Grid Reference: NS57912 62080
Height: 64 metres

Classification: Tump

The Walk: Many Routes Available

Distance: 600m to 1.2km

Climb: 20m  to 40m

Terrain: choice of smooth tarred paths or rough woodland paths

Parking: free on-street parking in side streets around park (availability - hit or miss)

Public Transport

Various busses stop around the park (check online for up to date info)

Queen's Park Train Station is 0.1 mile from the park. 

Mount Florida, Crossmyloof and Pollockshields West Train Stations are 0.4 miles from the park. 

Maps

I normally draw these, but due to the complexity of the park I put this off for literally months after I finished writing this blog post. In this interests of actually getting it published I am abandoning the drawing plan and giving links instead. It is a city park and has excellent maps available online which you can find in Google Maps (standard port of call), Open Street Maps (slightly better path mapping) and from St. Andrew's Orienteering Glasgow (doesn't show surrounding streets, but does have contour lines, which are handy).

Bonus summit photo, because I failed to draw a map

Urban tumps are a bit hit and miss. Lots of them are just high points in suburban streets. Really obsessive hill baggers will sneak into gardens to stand on the doorsteps of tump topping dwellings to reach the highest point, but fortunately my hill bagger agrees that that really is a bit much. He does bag them, but from the pavement rather than by invading gardens, which is to my mind odd, but fundamentally harmless.

I did try it once when I was visiting a friend in a seaside town. I took the street that went over the hill to her house, rather than the one that skirted the bottom of the hill. It was significantly harder work, and the view was made up almost entirely of terraced houses and large walls. I couldn't really see the point. 

This does not however meant that tumping is only really worthwhile as a rural pursuit, or if you're really into ticking things off lists. Plenty of hills were too steep or covered in historical monuments to build over. Or just seemed like a good location for a park. These little islands of green in a sea of city are generally well worth the climb. 

One of these is the rather splendid Queen's Park, which is built on a hill called Camp Hill. Its is possible that Camp Hill was chosen as a park because of its historical significance - there are the remains of an old fortification near the summit, which is likely where the hill's name comes from. Against this, the park is called Queen's Park, not Camp Hill, and it was built during the Victorian era, when park building was very much in vogue, so maybe it was just a handy location - at the time I believe it was at the edge of a rapidly expanding city. 

It's a classic Victorian Park, complete with Glasshouses, Rose Garden, and a bandstand or possibly an amphitheatre. It's also large enough that I haven't actually found any of these things, despite doing a circular walk to reach the summit, covering about  a mile of paths en route. It also has a boating pond, a wildlife pond, the aforementioned earth work fortification, a permanent orienteering course, an outdoor gym and several children's play parks. It would be a pleasant walking spot, even without the tump, but the view given by the small climb is truly phenomenal. 

Queen's Park Boating Pond

I usually come here with the big boy cousin, entering the park where Balvicar Street meets Pollockshaws Road (many other entrances and routes are available though). From there the most direct route is up past the playpark, but we tend to take a scenic route, starting with a detour round the boating pond. There are no longer boats on the boating pond, but you can still very much imagine it as it was in it's heyday. In researching this post, I also found a beautiful photo from the Burrell Collection Photo Library published in The Glasgow Story of a group of boys sailing model boats on the pond. 

Wildlife Pond (Photo Credit to my lovely friend Emily who somehow found this pond and not the other one)

Past the boating pond there is a lovely wildlife pond, and from there we just charged up through the woodland on the first thing that looked vaguely like a path. We just kept selecting the routes that went up, and hit the flagpole pretty quickly. If you hit a big fence and allotments (this park really does have everything) you have gone too far south. Turn left and head upwards to find the summit. 

This route is my favourite kind of hill walk, where you cannot see the view until you hit the summit, in this case because you are amongst the trees almost the whole way from the wildlife pond. The last climb brings you above most of the trees, so the view is phenomenal. It might be best in winter when the trees are leafless giving an even wider view, but it's pretty good year round. You're only climbing 40 metres from the Balvicar St entrance, (less if you come from some of the other gates). But that takes you way above the height of most of the buildings to the north of the hill, and you can see all the way across the city and out to Ben Lomond and the Trossachs. Not bad for a 20 minute climb in the middle of Scotland's largest city! 

Me, the Big Boy Cousin and his partner Jess, Camp Hill Summit, Queens Park, looking towards the Trossachs.

I like this hill so much I have done it thrice. Even though I live absolutely nowhere near Glasgow. Although admittedly the first time I did it with the big boy cousin, so we had to come back so the hill bagger could bag it too. His world is set somewhat askew when there are tumps I have climbed which he hasn't. Don't tell him I once went to Devon and climbed several tumps without him...

Big Boy Cousin, at Queen's Park Flag Pole

We usually come down on the main path heading north straight back to Balvicar Street. If you need smoother terrain then I would take this route both up and down, with a detour right around the pond if you fancy an extension. The route is well signposted, so you can't miss it. There are cobblestones around the summit, but apart from that it's all smooth tarmac, and it mostly isn't too steep.

Signpost to Flagpole and Balvicar Drive, Queen's Park Glasgow

The way we came up is more of a woodland walk, with rough ground and roots sticking out. If you like a woodland adventure you could come back down on the west side of the flagpole and explore some of the other paths that run through this wild corner of the park. I did this with my cousin on one of our trips and we stumbled across an unpaved path which ran along the top of the earthworks for which Camp Hill may have been named. We didn't actually realise what it was at first. We commented on the unusual earth formation, and wondered if it was manmade. Further research informs me that is was, it's an earthwork which according to the archaeologists which excavated it in 1951 was best decribed as a "clay castle" although a later archaeologist who looked at it but didn't excavate thought it might be a "Norman ringwork earth and timber castle", which potentially fits with the age of pottery fragments found by the 1951 excavation. I mean, basically it's just weird curved mounded earth. With trees growing in it. And a wee bit of path running along a short section. But it's kind of cool that it is manmade and has been there for hundreds of years.

Path running along the top of the earthworks, Queen's Park, Glasgow

From the map it also looks like there is a significantly shorter and less steep route if you start from Langsides Road on the east side of the park (just south of the tennis courts), however, as I haven't walked this route myself I cannot comment on what path surfaces or scenery are like. 

All in all, a delightful urban tump. If you've been up it, tell me about your favourite route in the comments section. If you haven't, do you have another favourite urban hill?

View from summit, Queen's Park, Glasgow